In the modern world, consumers are accustomed to a wide array of options when shopping for goods and services. Furthermore, online shopping at marketplaces such as Amazon, enable consumers to make informed purchasing decisions by comparing products by their price, quality, user reviews, user comments, etc. However, in today's health care marketplace, consumers are unable to compare medications using the same consumer tools as available in other marketplaces. Many health conditions have a variety of potential medications used for treatment. For example, there are a plurality of types of prescription medications used to treat high blood pressure. However, sorting through, comparing, and selecting a medication may be a time consuming, and even ineffective process. Patients may end up spending more money on a medication that is less effective than other lower-priced counterparts. Given the limited time patients have with doctors and the limited knowledge patients have about the differences between medications, the large number of potential medications often present an obstacle to productive patient involvement in the process of selecting a medication.
Patients and doctors face several obstacles in determining the most effective, safe and least costly medication option. First, because of the lack of transparency in the medication selection process, there are a substantial number of medication alternatives that may be overlooked by both patients and doctors. Many factors may be considered by a patient when selecting a medication: the effectiveness, cost, side effects, health risks, etc., of the medication. However, currently, patients are not able to compare all medication options produced by different companies, side by side by their relevant information. Currently, patients may sort through medications by price, or effectiveness, or by side effects. However, it may be more efficient for a patient to be able to compare the relevant information for all medications on one display. In doing so, patients can more easily find the most effective, safe, and least costly medication option. Further, enabling patients to sort medications based on their preferences may increase the transparency of medication options. As an example, if the cost of a medication is a priority for the patient, the patient could sort the medication from lowest to highest cost while still being able to view and compare other aspects of the medications such as their effectiveness, side effects, etc.
Second, patients with the same condition who use the same medication will often experience different outcomes. Said another way, the effectiveness of a medication may not be the same for all patients. Differences in a patient's medical information, such as their medical history, age, gender, currently prescribed medications, etc., may all affect the effectiveness of a medication in treating a patient's medical condition. Non-medical information such as a patient's lifestyle, values, preferences, work condition, financial condition, etc., may also affect the effectiveness of a medication. As such, the predicted effectiveness of a medication should reflect a patient's medical and non-medical information. Current attempts to predict the effectiveness of a medication may be based on clinical studies, and published scientific literature concerning the medication. However, these attempts may assign a fixed user personalized grade to the medication, without accounting for patient-to-patient differences.
Third, in the United States, the time doctors spend with patients to understand their individual situations is getting shorter and shorter, as both caseloads and administrative loads increase faster than the physician population. As a result, doctors may avoid shared decision making and patient-centered care because it takes more time to understand what is personal about a patient's feelings and situation and how to apply that to a medication choice. This is a problem because studies show that patients who are more involved in choosing their care tend to get better outcomes. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improved methods and systems for helping patients select medications.
Several attempts to address transparency issues in the process of selecting medication have been made. For example, US patent application 2014/0,244,292 discloses a method for recommending treatment options to patients based on the predicted effectiveness of the treatment option. The predicted effectiveness may take into account medical and non-medical characteristics of the patient to improve the accuracy of the predicted effectiveness. Thus, the predicted effectiveness of a medication may depend on the patient, and as such a medication's predicted effectiveness may be personalized to each patient according to their specific traits and characteristics.
However, the inventors herein have recognized issues with the previous attempts to address the lack of transparency in the process of selecting medications. Specifically, previous attempts to increase the transparency of medication options only partially solve the issues described above. For example, US patent application 2014/0,244,292 only allows a patient to compare treatment options by their predicted effectiveness. Thus, only being able to compare treatment options by their effectiveness, may lead to a confusing and time consuming treatment selection process.
The inventors herein have recognized the issues described above and have devised systems and methods for addressing the issues. In particular, systems and methods for a transparent healthcare platform and user interface are provided. More specifically, the methods and systems described herein, provide an approach for integrating crucial and relevant information about medication options such as their effectiveness, cost, user reviews and comments, etc., and then compiles that information for a list of medications into one integrative display.
The present invention provides, among other advantages, methods and systems for helping patients find, select, compare, and purchase medications. In one embodiment, a method comprises receiving user information including one or more characteristics of a user from a remote user device, responsive to a query from the user via the user device, receiving a list of one or more medications identified from a storage device, receiving medication information about each identified medication in the list of the one or more medications from the storage device, wherein the received medication information includes one or more of an indication of the clinical effectiveness of the identified medications, prescription experience data characterizing experiences of patients with the identified medications, cost information, insurance coverage, care provider recommendations, and secondary technical effects, calculating a user personalized grade for each of the identified medications based on the medication information and the user information, transmitting the user personalized grade and medication information to the user device, and displaying simultaneously on the user device, the user personalized grade, cost, prescription experience data, and secondary technical effects of each identified medication.
In this way, a healthcare platform is provided that allows patients to search for, compare, select, and purchase medication all from one device. Thus, the efficiency of the process of selecting and purchasing a medication may be improved in two ways. First, because of the increased transparency of the medication options available to the patient, a patient may spend less money and experience improved results from their medications. Second the amount of time a patient may spend selecting a medication may be decreased due to the research, selection, and purchasing processes all being combined into one integrative process. Further, the safety of a patient may be improved due to the healthcare platform providing a patient-care provider integrated network. The patient profile including all of the patient's current medication may be monitored by the patient's care provider to ensure that any health risks associated with one or more of the medication may be avoided.
The above summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the subject matter. Furthermore, the subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.